Financial dimension of the Co-Use Alliance

Within the framework of the so-called NRW model of cost accounting for the sharing of EfA services, which is provided via the WSP.NRW, a distinction is provided between billable regular and irregular (i.e. event-driven) costs. The regular costs refer to all ordinary expenses incurred in the context of the continuous operation of the online service. Irregular costs include, but are not limited to, the evolution of online services.

EfA creation costs and cost-bearing obligations

As part of the digitalisation of EfA services, only such costs can be financed through the Federal Economic Recovery Programme, which are also causally attributable to compliance with the EfA minimum technical requirements and compliance with the EfA control indicators per EfA implementation project.

Reference implementation and roll-out

The costs of providing the online service as a reference implementation in the providing federal state of NRW (so-called ‘MVP’ Minimum Viable Product) are financed by the funds made available from the Federal Economic Recovery Programme. Online services must meet at least maturity level 3 at that time.

The same applies in principle to the costs within the scope of the EfA expenses incurred by NRW as providing federal state, which arise in compliance with the minimum technical, legal and organizational EfA requirements.

The costs of operating EfA services (and the respective LeiKa services included) depend on the actual reference point of the costs. Irrespective of the regular and irregular costs, the costs that cannot be reimbursed through the operation of EfA services, which are already incurred in the WSP.NRW, are so-called ‘anyway’ costs. The ‘anyway’ costs are not included in the scope of the proposed calculation model. These costs cover all expenses that benefit the WSP.NRW, but are not (directly) linked to the provision of EfA services via the WSP.NRW using federal economic resources.

Chargeable regular costs include all expenses incurred in the course of a year of operation of EfA services in the WSP.NRW for the benefit of the providing and co-benefiting federal states.

Irregular costs that can be cancelled are costs that are independent of normal operation, event-driven and incurred, and which relate in particular to the content and technical changes of existing online services in the WSP.NRW. This includes, in particular, further developments of online services, changes in the IT infrastructure that are not covered by the above-mentioned ‘anyway costs’ or so-called change requests (see below). These costs are incurred to the extent that the expense allowance for content maintenance and general technical development is exceeded. In the case of pure further developments, the costs can be passed on to the requesting countries on the basis of the Königstein distribution key.

Change requests refer to the new development of online services that are already "live", but whose further development is so extensive and so different from the original online service, so that a new service must therefore be assumed. Change requests occur only sporadically.

The costs incurred should be added in a first step depending on the position. First of all, the distinction between billable regular and irregular costs contained in this billing concept must be taken into account. Regular costs are to be understood as flat-rate costs that are generally incurred for all online services or digitised administrative services. Individual costs refer to individual developments or change requests, which usually do not concern all digitized and available in the WSP.NRW administration services / online services.

The cost allocation is based on the Königstein key.

The cost matrix shows the expenditure in person days (PT) per role and entity. At the end, the expenditure may be multiplied by the applicable daily rates of the relevant framework contracts and specific contracts and added to a total annual amount. The costs listed are average expenses. They can be inserted in the above formula for the cost accounting model.

These are averages based on previous experience. Costs are measured per online service. Bundles of services refer to professionally and legally related LeiKa services that are offered in a network.

NRW reserves the right to adapt its cost accounting model, in particular in the context of technical innovation, other legal or organisational changes. This can mainly be the case if new knowledge in the area of cost accounting is acquired after the first year of operation. As soon as the calculated total costs, including inflation compensation, are exceeded, the current cost allocation model is updated.

For successful reuse, committees, roles and processes must be considered and implemented as required. The cross-border exchange on reuse must be taken into account, as well as the continuous improvement and further development of online services, which should also take into account the needs of the post-user countries.